A list of links to nonfiction films on the web. Prepared as an
appendix to a study on digital technologies that support
documentary filmmaking. Compiled by Åke Walldius, Center for User
Oriented IT Design at the Royal Institute of Technology.

These annotations were originally made to give the participants
of the TV4 Seminar on Border-crossing documentaries (Stockholm
August 18-19 2000) some material to explore after the seminar.
They are written in english since the first day of the seminar
was held in english and the presentation was planned as a Question-And-Answer
session. Since the session indeed produced some important new
questions, I have decided to extend the notes with some reflections
and further examples which I hope will be of interest.

Goal of the list

The goal of the list is to give a glimpse of some of the existing techniques on the web that may become useful for documentary film projects.
A secondary goal is to propose a constructive question that can guide the search for other relevant techniques and help
structure the findings.

The Documentary has not yet reached the Web

Today, very few have the privilege to enjoy documentary film experiences
on the web. The bandwidth is still too narrow, or too unstable,
for most communities. Standards for compression, distribution,
and presentation are still under intense development and far from
being mature. And the underlying computer infrastructure is still
characterized by what Don Norman has termed 'featuritis', a nauseating focus on 'new, sophisticated features' that have
caused most end users more confusion than comfort.

But why just wait for it?

There are many signs that the web is about to become a useful
tool for documentarists. Ted Nelson, one of the pioneers of hypertext
authorship, who incidentally had a background as a film editor,
used the term 'docuverse' to describe the emerging web of interlinked documents that he
anticipated would liberate communities of many sorts: "Imagine
a new accessibility and excitement that can unseat the video narcosis that now sits on our land
like a fog."

Many different professions are engaged in their special fields

Ted Nelson envisioned a slow emergence of a 'docuverse' where
film, step by step would merge with other (documentary) modes
of expression. This renewal of the documentary tradition will
be a complex and multi-layered process. While the building of
a stable and user-friendly technical infrastructure is an immensely
entangled activity, the evolution of social, linguistic and stylistic
conventions is an even more complicated process. Therefore, to
evaluate and share insights about the ongoing rebirth of documentaries
will require contributions from many disciplines and trades.

To understand their contributions we need to learn many languages

The many disciplines involved in this media transformation makes
the language border the first border to cross for those engaged
in the search. Different disciplines have different concepts for
what seems to be 'the same thing' to an outside observer. Hence,
the key concepts in this presentation is based on the design patterns
approach, a multidisciplinary approach aimed at finding a common vocabulary for people who work with IT and media design.

Sharing design patterns may help specialists exchange know-how

Briefly, the design pattern approach is based on the idea to collect,
describe, analyse, exemplify, and publicise recurrent patterns
of design for specific application domains. In architecture, the domain for which the approach was developed, patterns have
names such as Family of entrances, Half hidden gardens, Courtyards which live, and The flow through rooms. In organisational design, consultants talk about Self-selecting teams, 3 to 7 Helpers per role , and Engage Customers. Researchers within Human Computer Interaction (HCI) have collected patterns such as Overview beside detail, Optional detail on demand, and Interaction history. Software engineers map the interplay between more abstract patterns such as Façade, Factory, and Singleton. To point to a few corresponding patterns in the domain of nonfiction
film, a few recurrent patterns in Direct Cinema could be named:
Characters followed along challenging paths, Themes emerge unexpectedly, Parallel recording and editing. (See A note on concepts for a few more remarks on this 'language in the making'.)

Which are the patterns of the documentary domain?

Up till now, critics and scholars of nonfiction film have preferred
to talk about 'modes of representation' rather than about genres.
These modes are characterised by their specific use of certain
'stylistic devices'. By focusing on the relation between the filmmakers
and the events they portray, scholars have identified the 'Expository
mode' which use stylistic devices such as Voice-over narration,
Reconstructed events, and Classical dramatic construction. The
'Observational mode' is characterised by devices such as Filmmaker
immersed in uncontrolled events, Prolonged takes reveal spontaneous
interaction, and Research integrated in the recording phase. In
the 'Interactive mode' the originators play a more active part
through Filmmaker interacts with characters, Interviews, and Archival
footage. In opposition to that mode, the 'Reflexive mode' tries
to reveal the interpretative agency of the originator through
Filmaker foregrounds ambiguity, and Contrasting interpretations.
(See the Notes about documentary vocabulary for further comments on 'design patterns' as another way of looking
at 'stylistic devices' and the modes, genres, and cycles they
make up.)

Which questions makes us see the patterns that make up different
genres?

Even if the formal elements listed above have been closely studied
by critics and scholars, their relation to the audience and to
the underlying technical and social context has not been followed
as thoroughly. This is where the concept 'design patterns' may
prove helpful as it can make us see the borders between different
genres more clearly. By analysing which typical patterns a certain
documentary use, we can detail more concretely which borders it
is trying to cross and what new genre (hybrid) it is trying to
establish or confirm. If we focus our examination on the borders
themselves, as this seminar does, we can ask what borders are
about to be crossed and which patterns that provide the practical
compositional bridges. (See Other devices exemplified in the UK examples for further comments on borders about to be crossed.)

A question about accountability

The question of the seminar is: Which borders are the documentary
getting ready to cross? More specifically, the question is about
'the possibilities' and 'the limitations'. If we find 'accountability'
(or any other word for trustworthiness or poetic integrity) to
be a key quality of a Documentary Film, we could rephrase the
question in terms of which border-crossings that enhance accountability
and which border-crossings that diminish it. If we also accept
the notion that genres are made up of unique sets of design patterns,
or stylistic devices as they are usually called, we could make
our question even more directed. To sum it all up, this is the
question that have directed my search for new documentary techniques
on the web:

What stylistic devices on the web can support an extended accountability?

I have categorised each example with its institutional context
(Web Centre, Magazine website etc.) and the possible, overall
role of that institution in the transformation of the documentary
(distribution, viewing, critique etc.). Since hidden cameras and
'Reality TV' was one of the themes of the seminar I have included
two examples that examine the phenomenon of 'Cyber-snooping'.
After some production data, a short and very informal characterisation
of the example is given. Then, in italics, the nitty-gritty of the example is identified as the stylistic devices that make the example interesting.

Middle-of-the-road newsshow on surveillance on the Net. Anchorman
supplies background. Some facts and figures. Interviews with a
vendor of surveillance equipment and a federal inquirer. Lightly
informative. Spurs further investigation.

FreeSpeechTV: This Land Is Your Land, by Dourg Hawes-Davis, Sierra
Club, 1999.

An examination of the end results of a hundred years of forest
management. Wildlife and archival footage that the computer can
do little justice to. But which is complemented by a wealth of
urgent facts about the cost of commercial logging of publicly
owned forests, delivered by Sierra Club leaders, congressmen,
US Forest Service planners, and biologists.

Archive for reviewing of broadcast videos. Store for bying them.
Links for news and critical reports on the issues covered.

Portrait of Jerome B. Weisner, one of the aknowledged leaders
of the M.I.T. Rich, intertextual biography in the form of written
personal accounts, narrated seires of stills, and videoclips.
Intertwines the personal carrier of an academic leader with many
of the last century´s issues of public debate.

Don Norman has held several key positions within the computer
industry and is one of its harshest critics in respect to the
industry's attitude to end users. In books like The Design of
Everyday Things and The Invisible Computer (see the website below)
he explains how the broad adoption of IT will force manufacturers
and software companies to leave the technology-centered design
strategy for a human-centered strategy. He details his critique
of 'featuritis' in the latter book, pages 80-82. Read more about
the coming of 'information appliances' and user-friendly software
on his homepage: http://www.jnd.org/.

Ted Nelson's quote about 'video narcosis'

The quote about 'video narcosis' is taken from Literary Machines
(Eastgate System, order from Ted Nelsons website, see below).
Ted Nelsons is probably most famous for his legendary project
Xanadu, in which meta-data, the self-reflecting declarations of
electronic documents, was planned to direct financial compensation
to the documents' originators. Read more about the project at:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/people/ted_nelson/

There are several good introductions to the pattern language approach
and I have listed some of them under the heading Links to websites on design patterns. Below, I will only comment briefly on three aspects of special
interest: the relation between design patterns and design guidelines, the task of compiling patterns from the domain of nonfiction film, and the need of sharing know-how across professional borders within an industry in turbulent growth.

The relation between designpatternsanddesignguidelines

Design patterns are quite close to design guidelines in many respect. Both serve to sum up and share know-how, heuristics,
and rules-of-thumb from a specific application domain. However,
design patterns are less detailed than guidelines as they try
to strip away technical details. Their underlying principle is
to abstract that which stays the same between many examples and implementations. On the other hand,
the formalism of mature patterns which have been recognised by
many practitioners is quite elaborate. The representation of a
mature pattern have the form of a one to five pages long investigation
which: gives the pattern a telling name; describes the context,
the synonyms, and the problem approached; then argues about the
forces or arguments behind it; goes on to describe the solution
it provides; and last but not least, describes the relation between
the pattern investigated and other patterns which it interacts
with.

The fact that patterns describe tried and tested solutions to
recurrent problems give them the appearance of rules. But since
these solutions are always supported by clear and concise arguments,
and with references to other patterns, the solutions tend to stay
more open and flexible than a regular set of design rules. The
point is never to rely on strict directions but to use patterns as suggestions and guidance. This means that
most recognised patterns are constantly open for debate, revisions
and alterations. This is why the originators of the approach named
their first broad collection A Pattern Language, not The Pattern Language. Their basic idea was that practitioners from
many fields should make their own languages, based on the book,
but more importantly, based on their own shared experience.

Although the definition and reworking of mature patterns is an
important step in the pattern approach, individual patterns doesn't
get really useful until they get assembled with their related
counterparts from a specific domain. It is in the interplay between
five to ten patterns that the organic qualities of the approach
becomes visible. If we know the domain in which the patterns are
recognised, then a good collection can make us see with new eyes
how different things interact and support each other in subtle
ways. This is why the originators stressed that it is what happens between the patterns that is important, that the approach is all about A Pattern Language.

Compiling patterns from the domain of nonfiction film

There is a long way to go before we can compile a rich collection
of recognised patterns from nonfiction film. My aim here is to
argue for that the approach should be tested. One reasonable way
of doing that is to identify a series of emerging patterns that
seem to be on the verge of renewing the documentary on the web.
This way of using patterns, as a search mechanism rather than a tool to teach accepted practice, is an important one. The need for a common vocabulary to describe media transitions is at least as great as the need for teaching tools that deal
with accepted practice. True, it makes it more difficult to try
to grasp "things in the making" than mapping established procedures.
But on the other hand, it also makes it more advantageous and
fun. Hopefully their should be plenty of room for the generous
and sharing attitude that is typical of other communities in which
design patterns are used as a way to exchange know-how.

The need for sharing know-how

The generous, yet critical attitude that distinguish the debates
in which practitioners share their know-how is worth a note of
its own. Obviously, the general sentiment within these communities
is, that the benefits of a sharing between colleagues more than
outweigh the drawbacks of revealing ones own favourite techniques.
Historians of technology, such as Thomas P Hughes, have shown
that it is these anarchistic and curiosity-driven communities
of computer scientists and dedicated professionals that have provided
much of the driving force behind the software that makes the Internet
a useful, friendly, empowering, and fun environment. Even though
this attitude often comes natural within the institutions of education,
research and other public service environments, many of the industrial
environments of today seem to thrive on the same open-mindedness.

How do the concepts relate to the documentary vocabulary of the
TV4-seminar?

How useful are concepts such as 'design patterns' (stylistic devices,
schemata) and 'genres' (modes, cycles) when it comes to describing
exemplary documentary films made today. Here, I will just give
a few glimpses of how these concepts can help focus on some of
the crucial qualities of the films that were shown during the
first day of the conference.

During the first day, a series of newly made British documentaries
were shown.

David Wingate gave an introduction that, among other things, highlighted
the driving forces behind much of the formal and thematic innovation:
to challenge the orthodoxies of the documentary concept in systematic ways. "Giving the audience
what they want, but also what they don't know that they want",
as he formulated one of his principles.

How does such a principle of challenge relate to the concept of
recurrent patterns and symmetries that stay the same over time?
As I see it, it is the small but deliberate extension of crucial patterns that provide the exciting trespassing of
established borders. Most of the basic narrative and rhetoric
patterns stay the same, but some are renewed in waves, or cycles,
of films that oppose, challenge and contest the established norms.
And it is in the choice of which patterns to renew that the filmmaker
can show the audience "what they didn't know that they wanted".

Colin Luke from Mosaic Films gave the first examples of how subtle
changes within a firm, almost classical narrative framework could
have powerful, dramatic effects. First, he managed to sum up the
interplay between money, technology, and the enterprise of filmmaking
in a very convincing testimony about the whims of the marketplace.
Then, he demonstrated how the small, digital videocameras of today
allowed filmmakers to explore new environments by extending the
patterns of the 'Observational mode'. The way I saw them, the
excerpts he showed all illustrated the extension of one of that
modes typical patterns:Prolonged takes reveal spontaneous interaction.

In the first excerpt, the cameraman is thrown off a raft, left
behind, below water level, but keeps on recording as he drifts
in the direction of a deadly rock, only to be rescued back onboard
the raft the seconds before he hits it. This is of course an extreme
example of how a prolonged shot, when you have the technology
that supports it, can reveal incidents impossible to document
with other means. The following excerpts demonstrated how prolonged
shots could reveal more restrained events and relationships. An
interview with a young boy at a boarding school seems to reach
its expressive peak, after which most cameramen would turn off
the camera, when it suddenly turns into a new revelatory direction.
In much the same way, the tragedies of Russian families drawn
into the turmoil of war is documented with a closeness and patience
that earlier technologies, and earlier formal conventions, could
not reach.

Even if this is not the right place to elaborate on it, similar
analysis could be made of the excerpt shown by the two following
documentarists, Chris Terrill and Jeremy Gibson. Colin Luke's
examples were heavily influenced by the Observational tradition
even if they made use of conventions from the Interactive tradition,
(series of well prepared interviews). Chris Terrill, a former
ethnographer, declared himself to be much closer to the Interactive
tradition, pinpointing it in the image of "A fly off the wall"
in contrast to the Observational ideal being "A fly on the wall".
With excerpts from 'HMS Brilliant', 'Soho Stories' and 'The Cruise'
he demonstrated how new digital camera technologies allowed him
to become a curious and talkative visitor to secluded environments.
The importance of elements such as Long projects and Prolonged takes was as obvious as in Colin Luke's examples. But the personal
presence of the cameraman made itself felt much stronger in the
way Chris Terrill interacted with the people he, and we, got to
know during his voyages. The endurance in project length and shot-lengths
was paralleled by a sense that there was a long-term contract
and mutual understanding between the people Chris Terrill met
and himself.

After Chris Terrills presentation of his own personal experiences
as a Documentarist/Ethnographer, Jeremy Gibson, a producer at
BBC Bristol, gave an interesting account of the successive waves
of new documentary-inspired forms that the BBC reached popularity
with during the 90's. Again, the agencies of the documentary challenge, production technologies, and stylistic devices were the main threads of the account. Gibson started, as did
Colin Luke, by referring to the harsh contrast he felt in the
early 90's between the flexibility of Camcorders in relation to
the then dominant large-scale and bureaucratically entangled production
apparatus. Out of this tension emerged the so called Video Diary,
with follow-ups such as Football Diary and Teenage Diary, a production
design in which the Protagonist assumes the role of cameraman. Although Gibson did not discuss any of the interesting formal
questions of this wave he forcefully argued that this was "something
radically different in terms of what it was saying and where it
came from". What he did point to as an important precondition
for the emergence of the diary cycle, and the other subsequent
forms, was that the innovative energy, and thus the audience feedback,
in the competing genres of drama, entertainment and (established) documentary programming
was particularly low at the time.

Particularly interesting was Gibson's referral to the new time
structures of the emerging forms as a crucial element of their
success. The time-borders they crossed were: their higher pace of action (compared to their
forerunners), a higher cutting speed, and their reliance on the
Cliff-hanger link between episodes. Gibson admitted willingly that is was not the importance-factor
(the relative political or social urgency) that brought it into
popularity. But he claimed that this was in fact something that
came later. The second wave of innovative programming he showed
examples from could be termed Comedy Docusoaps. In Drivers Licence
we get to know some of the most troubled pupils of a drivers school,
with lingering close-ups on their patient teachers, friends and
relatives. As the years went by, more challenging subjects provided the innovative energy. Gory workplace environments populated
by tested employees got documented in series such as Vets in Practice
(veterinarians) and Life of Brian (social workers). In Gibson's
account this eventually resulted in a third cycle that may consequentially
be termed Dramatic docusoaps. This cycle was exemplified in the
series Au Pair where the total lack of regulation and the cultural
clashes between employer and employee got effectively scrutinised.

Gibson's claim that this was indeed a new cycle, worth its own
attention, can be supported with reference to Rick Altman's latest
book Film / Genre (BFI Publ, 1999). Here Altman argues that new
cycles emerge based either on shifts in semantics (themes, subject matter) or on shifts in syntactics (stylistic devices, design patterns). The key purpose of the
border-crossing, according to Altman, is that it challenges the
orthodoxies, that it contests the ruling order in the name of
a community in the making. A community that mark out their new
symbolic territory by either charging existing forms with new
themes or by fusing new meaning into existing themes through presenting
them in new (outrageous) forms. It is in extension of this argument
that the centrality of the stylistic devices, or design patterns,
becomes evident. If we can't trace the shifting syntax between
for example the two cycles of Docusoaps, 'Primarily for Entertainment'
versus 'Primarily for Critical Enquiry (although intensely entertaining)',
how are we to account for the shifts in audience reception and
its dynamic dependence upon themes employed and techniques applied?

Other stylistic devices exemplified in the UK examples

What follows is a short list of other stylistic device exemplified
during the seminar. In one way or another, they all seem to be
prompted or made possible by the development of digital technologies.
A general theme of this development is that it has lead to a miniaturisation of equipment which in turn has provided for a greater mobility in the hands of experienced filmmakers. Again, the reason to
focus on devices or patterns is to give glimpses of the practical
and concrete interplay between technologies, themes, designs,
genres and audience communities. This should not be taken as a
proposition that all documentary analysis has to focus on stylistic
devices. The general idea is only to highlight an important link
in the creative chain of a popular craft. And to show that much
of the discussion in fact touch upon these important links, even
if they are seldom highlighted in terms of stylistic devices or
design patterns.

Long recording phase: In virtually all of the films shown an extended recording phase
had been made possible by the enhanced economy of the digital
technique. In turn, this longer period of recording allow for
an extended closeness to the characters and themes of the film.
In that way such project designs can be seen as a precondition
for Prolonged takes on the level of the whole process of researching, recording,
and editing.

Immersive sound-recording: In many of the films small microphones with radiotransmitters
were used, allowing for the sound-man to be tucked away in a room
or a lorry on a street nearby. Together with the unobtrusiveness
of the camcorders, this provided for an even greater mobility
and closeness.

Editing in country of exhibition: In the Russian project Colin Luke presented, british editors
were used with the argument that the series was made for UK audiences.
However, the question was raised in the seminar whether Russian
editors could have used much of the same material for a very different
film for their Russian audiences.

Recording as part of Research: True to his training and experience as an ethnographer, Chris
Terrill approached his environment with an open mind. This meant
that he tried to understand more about it in the course of his
interactions, thereby identifying himself closer with the people
he met and with his audience. The point was to get the revelations on tape,
to make them grow out of the material.

Do look in the camera: One of the techniques Chris Terrill used to get to know the
people he met better was to encourage them to look him in the
eyes. That meant that he sometimes asked them to abandon the habit
of avoiding gazes directly into the camera.

Cameraman interacts with both eyes: Since Chris did not film all of the time he met other people,
he made it a habit of his own to open his "non-camera eye" to
signal that the conversation was about to shift to "off the record".
That most of the people he met silently agreed to this pattern,
and changed their eyeline of conversation accordingly, is one
of the strongest evidences that the Documentary today is more
about communication than about "information".

"Give me a character, not a storyline": This was Chris Terrill's way of saying that he certainly did
not start his projects from the angle of getting a specific story
across. What fascinates him, and what he hopes will fascinate
his audiences, is to get to know people who face challenges that
he can share.

Organisational design
A clear and visually engaging introduction to the application
of patterns to organisational design (and other fields) is given
by Thomas Erickson, in the form of a downloadable PDF-file at:
http://www.upassoc.org/html/download/patterns.pdf

Software engineering
Software engineering is the field of application that most of
the references on the web are dedicated to. Here are two links
from the same website. The first tells the story about how patterns
got applied to software engineering. The second is a roadmap to
a movement that has grown out of the pattern community, Extreme
Programming, a movement that 'takes commonsense principles and
practices to extreme levels':

Human Computer Interaction
Engineers and designer within the HCI domain have started to apply
the pattern approach to the design of user interfaces. Here is
a link to one of the most complete home pages, hosted by Thomas
Erickson, and a second link the most comprehensive collections
of HCI patterns, made by Jenifer Tidwell:

Again, the purpose is not to be comprehensive but to compile a
short list that represents the existing diversity of approaches
to the documentary on the web. They are all small microcosms of
their own. The interesting thing is to reflect on which thematic
and formal elements that unite them and will make them flourish
through the intense use by many different categories of users.